Winifred
Swearingen was a co-founder of the San Antonio Woman's Club in 1898 and
involved in other San Antonio organization. Patrick Swearingen was a prominent
attorney in San Antonio, with business in south Texas and Mexico.

Content Abstract:

This
collection is composed entirely of correspondence. The bulk of the
correspondence is between Winifred McCraw and Patrick Henry Swearingen, but
there are also letters from other family members and friends.

Winifred McCraw was born to Miller Woodson McCraw and Winifred Goodwin
McCraw of Bryan, Texas in August, 1868. She attended Baylor College, as had her
mother, and later attended Vassar College while nursing her father, who was
then living on the East Coast. Winifred was a democrat and involved in a number
of causes during her life, including suffrage and lobbying the legislature of
Texas on behalf of retail workers. She was a co-founder of the San Antonio
Woman's Club in 1898, lady manager of the symphony society, a charter member of
the Battle of Flowers Association, and a member of First Baptist Church, the
Ladies Aid and Mission Society, and the Fenwick Club.

Patrick Henry Swearingen was born to Patrick Henry Swearingen and Mary
Elizabeth Toland Swearingen in Brenham, Texas in 1865, and graduated from
University of Texas in 1888. He was a prominent attorney in San Antonio, with
business in south Texas and Mexico. He was appointed Judge of the Fourth Texas
Court of Civic Appeals in 1916.

Winifred McCraw and Patrick Henry Swearingen married on April 8, 1891.
The Swearingens moved to San Antonio immediately after their marriage. The
house they moved into, 529 E. Guenther Street, was the one they occupied the
rest of their lives. The couple had five children. Richard McCraw, born in
1892, died of spinal meningitis while attending the University of Texas in
1913, just days before his twenty-first birthday. Patrick Henry was born in
1893, followed by Dorothy in 1893, Winifred Mary in 1903 and Robert Goodwin in
1909. Many of their descendants still live in San Antonio. (See the family tree
in the collection for information on Winifred McCraw and Patrick Henry
Swearingen's descendants.)

Patrick Henry died of influenza complications in 1919, and Winifred
died in 1938.

This collection is composed entirely of correspondence. Although the
bulk of the collection is made up of correspondence between Winifred McCraw and
Patrick Henry Swearingen, there are also letters from other family members and
friends.

The correspondence between Winifred and Patrick Henry begins five
years before they were married, and continues through 1908. The letters trace
changes in their relationship over time, as well as providing glimpses of
friendships, and the couple's relationships with two of their sons. Winifred's
letters to Patrick Henry, reveal the evolution of their relationship in many
ways, most obviously the salutations which change from "Mr. Swearingen, Dear
Friend," to "Dearest Harry,". The letters in the months leading to their
wedding are particularly interesting, especially when Winifred offers her views
on where the couple should live, the layout of the yard, and other domestic
concerns. Winifred also documents a trip taken through the West and MidWest the
summer before their wedding, including a trip to Pike's Peak.

Patrick Henry's correspondence includes a number of letters from
family members and friends, and many letters written to Winifred after they had
been married several years. Patrick Henry spent a large amount of time
traveling around Texas and in Northern Mexico attending to clients and other
business affairs, and his letters home are often wistful, particularly the
letter written in honor of their seventeenth wedding anniversary in 1908.
Patrick Henry's relationship with his son and namesake, Patrick Henry, is
illuminated in a letter offering advice on guns and the game of football.

Of note in the General Correspondence subseries of Patrick Henry's
correspondence, are letters from Carrie McNelly, a family friend who had shared
a room with Winifred's mother at Baylor. Carrie's letters are mainly about her
son, Rebel. She wrote "I will have to suffer for him--but I will do it, hoping
to save him after a while." Rebel was later hanged for murder.

Richard M. Swearingen wrote two letters to his parents from
University of Texas in 1910, which offer a look at college life in the early
twentieth century. The final series, Letter Fragments contains torn pages,
unsigned letters and other fragments of pages from letters.

Patrick Henry Swearingen

Letters to his wife, Winnifred McCraw Swearingen chronicle his
loneliness while traveling. The letters also offer a look at farm activities
and business travel in the early twentieth century. Also included are letters
from friends and siblings.